Is Climate Change Affecting the Nutritional Value of Food?

By Emily Campbell, Published on Jul 1, 2018

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Climate change and the potential catastrophes that it can lead to are seemingly all we hear about in the daily news. Since climate change is a result of global warming — something that has gone too far for us to control — it is natural to wonder if it is also affecting the nutritional value of our food and crops.

Nowadays, we are hearing about more and more cases of cancer that are believed to be a result of the food we are eating. One must wonder if this goes further than just eating junk food and whether our healthy food options are also causing harm.

What Is Causing This Climate Change?

It is believed that the greenhouse gases that the modern world emits into the atmosphere on a daily basis are at the heart of this problem. Every time you drive your car, take the bus or use your little scooter, you are burning fuel. This burning of fuel emits dangerous byproducts into the atmosphere, causing air pollution.

This air pollution is what we refer to as greenhouse gases, and it is believed that they are increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere. This is what is causing the climate change.

What Is the Evidence of Climate Change?

Have you ever found yourself chatting to your friends about the weather and commenting on how the winters are not as cold and the summers are much hotter than when you were a child? This is global warming. This is climate change.

But climate change doesn’t only affect the temperatures of our seasons. Rainfall and precipitation are also affected. Floods and droughts are two extremes that many parts of the world have been experiencing over the last few years. These are all effects of climate change.

So How Is This Affecting Our Food?

Different crops rely on different and very specific weather conditions to produce the best-quality outcomes. The soil needs to be healthy to allow these crops to grow with the right amount of nutrients, and it goes without saying that all crops need a good supply of water to grow efficiently and pull the nutrients out of the soil.

Large amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can affect the quality of the soil, breaking down its natural nutrient content. This begins the process of crops not growing with the right amount of nutrients from the soil and therefore being of substandard quality.

Drought conditions often cause farmers to pump water from outside dams or rivers to water their crops. This water can be contaminated and affect the nutritional value of the growing crops.

Because climate change has made it difficult for farmers to produce crops and meet demands, many of the commercial farmers have had to resort to using chemical-based fertilizers and growth hormones to produce an efficient crop yield. This obviously reduces the nutritional value of the crops.